Category: family

I have a funny thought from time to time that I thought I’d share. I don’t think it’s original, someone else has probably pointed this out before and they’ve probably said it better than I have, but here it is anyway.

I’m not writing this blog just for my pleasure or the pleasure of my readers, but for my children (and grandchildren). In a general sense, the internet is immortal and the words jotted down and thoughts expressed will in most cases remain on the web long after they’ve served their immediate informational purpose and even long after we’re dead and gone.

The work of future biographers and historians will be made infinitely easier by the public record-keeping of their eventual subjects, who have poured out their thoughts, dreams and anxieties for all to see on the web. The retention and archive of years and years of people’s personal electronic communications via e-mail in the cloud will further ease the work of these chroniclers.

But it is our children, for most of us unborn or currently incapable of understanding our written thoughts, who will be offered the strangest privilege by getting to look back on our personal, recorded thoughts. Up until now, most adults have never had to face children who had ready evidence of their past imperfections, mistakes and occasional cluelessness. No adult ever had to have the tables of parenthood turned on them as their children were unable to effectively watch them “grow up.”

The internet has changed many things, many businesses, many social activities. It is hard to imagine most traditional rules and styles of parenting surviving the internet completely unscathed. How will authoritarian, paternalistic, “because I said so!” parenting stand in the face of children who can read their parent’s blogs?

How will the State convince us of its version of historical events when we can all watch them ourselves on YouTube and make up our own mind about what happened and what was the significance of it?

For bloggers in their 40s and 50s, learning about the consequences of children who can read their blogs is probably becoming a weekly occurrence. For bloggers in their 20s and 30s, this experience is likely yet to be had though inevitably it will.

Rather than end my commentary with a warning like, “Be careful, your children will be watching you!”, instead I want to encourage readers to be fully cognizant of the opportunity to communicate with future generations in a powerful, new way. If your mission is to spread knowledge and understanding, smile knowing that what you’re writing and what you’re building will one day be enjoyed by your children, as well.

Notes from Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis by Ludwig von Mises [PDF]

Introduction

Chapter I, Ownership

the nature of ownership

the economic concept of ownership has to do with “having”, that is making use of the benefits of a particular good, whereas the legal concept of ownership has to do with whom the benefits rightfully belong to

consumption goods can only be owned, economically speaking, privately on an individual basis

production goods can have joint ownership in a legal sense, but it is the ultimate consumers of the output of production goods who own them economically because they are the ones who enjoy their benefits, in a division of labor society

in an autarkic society, the user can also be the owner of the production goods because all output serves to benefit him, but in a division of labor society the user of the production goods decisions are guided by the demands of end consumers who have economic ownership of them

violence and contract

all economic ownership derives from occupation and violence

all legal titles followed back in time must originate in appropriation of common goods

law arises when society comes together to recognize current ownership with legal title, thus ending the war of all against all

law and the State can not be traced back to contracts, they came into being in conditions of lawlessness and the absence of contract

“economic action demands stable conditions”; long-term productive processes can not exist in conditions of violence; peace is the aim of law, which allows for long-term economic action

law defends property in the interests of peace-making; all violence is aimed at property of one form or another

“Law cannot have begot itself of itself… in complaining that Law is nothing more or less than legalized injustice, one fails to perceive that it could only be otherwise if it had existed from the very beginning” (consider Proudhon’s “Property is theft”, how can one define theft in the absence of property?)

Law set to formalize a set of conditions which were then existing, and from which standpoint all future actions were to be judged

“Law did not leap into life as something perfect and complete. For thousands of years it has grown and it is still growing. The age of its maturity, the age of impregnable peace, may never arrive.”

three types of law, in order of economic importance

Private Law: regulates behavior between individuals

Public Law: regulates behavior between individuals and community/State

International Law: regulates behavior between communities/States

today, the principle of violence has been completely abandoned in Private Law; violent revolution is slowly being abandoned as a principle of Public Law and International Law is still in large part governed by the principle of arbitrary violence

the theory of violence and the theory of contract

liberalism, the principle of contract/Law dictating human society, takes time to develop and is the realization of a conscious effort guiding social life

“All anti-liberal social theories must necessarily remain fragments or arrive at the most absurd conclusions”

critics charge Liberalism with focusing only on earthly delights; it is an empty charge because Liberalism admits this; Liberalism promises nothing besides abundant material commodities, it doesn’t concern itself with The Greatest Secret of Man

urban settlement is an outgrowth of the division of labor/exchange society promised by Liberalism

Social philosophy must be earned with effort; immigration waves from country to town have often threatened to upset Liberal social order because immigrants are slow to adopt new modes of thinking (country bumpkins)

many Liberal civilizations have been ruined not from without by barbarians, but from within by seeming-citizens

theories based on struggle as the motive power for society deny a role for social cooperation, yet social cooperation is the essence of social theory

the strongest argument of imperialism is the idea that each country should have ownership over the essential means of production (economic nationalism); but if this principle were true, that one can not derive economic benefit from goods one does not legally possess, then why shouldn’t EVERY man possess these essential means of production for himself?

imperialism and socialism agree in their criticism of liberal property rights/ownership, but socialism seeks to divise a closed system of a future social order which imperialism could not

collective ownership of the means of production

the intent of early reforms of property rights was to provide equality in the distribution of wealth

a railway, a rolling mill, a machine factory can not be distributed; equal ownership principle has been abandoned in favor of the idea of social (State) ownership of the means of production

“Our whole civilization rests on the fact that men have always succeeded in beating off the attack of the re-distributors” lest economic regression take hold

this new idea for socialism is shaped by the private property order, it could not have occurred in its absence and it is a compromise of socialist philosophy because it realizes abandoning the social division of labor would totally destroy man’s economic life as we know it

in this sense, socialism IS a consequence of the liberal social order

socialism claims for itself a grandiose enterprise; it can not be thrust aside with one critical word but deserves a full response

theories of the evolution of property

it is an old political trick to try to found your ideal in a “Golden Age” of the long ago, since corrupted

Liberalism stresses the important development and “evolution” of civilization caused by private property in the means of production; Marxism plays to the idea that private property was an evolution, but a corrupt form

the historical record of private and “public” property is mixed and not certain, the idea of founding a theory of property rights on timeless history is flawed and untenable

regardless of the historical question, it is a separate problem to demonstrate that rational agriculture and other forms of economic development could be carried out in the absence of private property as an institution

Chapter II, Socialism

the State and economic activity

“the aim of socialism is to transfer the means of production from private ownership to the ownership or organized society, to the State”

limitation of the rights of owners as well as formal transference is a means of socialization (ie, regulation)

piecemeal socialization via regulation leaves the owner in position of owning an empty title, with true ownership/property rights resting in the State

Socialism and Liberalism have the same ends, but they choose different means for attaining them

the “fundamental rights” of socialist theory

culture is the true safeguard of rights, not legal formalities; numerous nations have legal guarantees of rights but culture is not widespread enough to support their consistent application

most of the time the economic rights dictated by socialism are for sloganeering purposes, or to act as a critique of the existing order; they don’t consider whether institutiing them legally is enough to change the social order and take this idea for granted so far as they believe in it

three fundamental socialist rights:

the right to the full produce of labor

this can only be had in a competitive process of buying and selling which dictates to each element (labor, capital and land) its respective value based off the subjective theory of value

this idea has always come to logical ruin and so the compromise is the idea of abolishing all “unearned” income via means of state control of the means of production

the right to existence

the idea of guaranteeing minimum existence was achieved in most communities by means of charity long ago, and is thus a harmless idea

what socialists actually mean is that every individual have their needs met based on the means available in the community, before the less urgent wants of others are met

the impossibility of judging the urgency of needs objectively means in practice this is simply a call for equitable distribution of society’s total wealth; “no one should starve while some have more than enough”

it is an idea fundamentally incompatible with the concept of private ownership because it will demand collective ownership in order to be realized

the right to work

the idea here is that people have the right to a job they enjoy that provides them a minimum level of subsistence with regards to their wants

it owes heritage to the idea that Nature was superabundant and everyone could fulfill his needs easily in this primitive state and so to “buy” man’s cooperation with society, which denies him this superabundance, some compensation must be made

it ignores that Nature is full of hardship and man enters into society because it is more productive, not less

unemployment is caused by economic change, and where it is not hindered by regulation it is a transitory affair

socialism, too, would need the ability to move labor to its most highly valued role; the idea of guaranteeing people a minimum income in their chosen work is absurd and ignores the demands of economic change

these 3 rights could be larger or smaller in number and today have been superseded by the idea of socialization of the means of production

collectivism and Socialism

society is only possible to the extent that the individual finds his ego and will strengthened by participating in the collective; the idea of a combat between the collective and the individual was false and a red herring used by collectivists interested in protecting the interests of various ruling classes

collectivism rests on a teleological problem, that is it purports to explain human action based on a purpose served rather than individual causes

collectivism posits the State as a God directing society toward a higher purpose; it assumes a war of all against all exists in society and individuals must be forced against their better interests to move in the direction of their divine purpose; that no peaceful social organization is possible

science of society begins by removing this dualism and with it the need for gods and heroes; human action in social cooperation can be explained by the simple idea that man sees more benefit in cooperating than he would achieve left on his own

collectivist philosophy is barren in terms of producing economic theory; it wasn’t until the “German mind” was freed of the collectivist philosophy of the State that pathbreakers like Menger, Bohm-Bawerk and Wieser were able to make important contributions to economic science

collectivists refer to the social will but can not consistently explain its origins, which are based on individual political, religious or national convictions

collectivism is political, not scientific; it teaches judgments of value

collectivism tends to be closer to the world philosophy of socialism but even some collectivists have advocated private property in the means of production (socialism != collectivism)

Chapter III, The Social Order and The Political Constitution

the policy of violence and the policy of contract

in a state of nature, “the Law of the Stronger”, the negation of law, exists; no peace, a truce at best

society grew out of the smallest associations agreeing to keep the peace and expanded outward from there

the policy of contract has nearly fully captured questions revolving around property, but political domination is still determined by the ancient means of arms, although this too is beginning to come under a set of rules

in response, the nature of war has come under the influence of “Just Cause”, the policy of naked aggression tending to attract powerful anti-coalitions

Liberal social policy teaches that war is harmful to the conqueror and the conquered; society is built through peace; peace is the father of all things

Liberalism’s aim at protecting property, and avoiding war, are expressions of the same principle of peace

the social function of democracy

the highest political principle of Liberalism is self-determination of people

for Liberalism, democracy performs functions that men are not prepared to do without

many claim the aim of democracy is to select political leaders, but there is no inherent reason why democracy should choose better leaders than any other form of government

the true function of democracy is to make peace, to avoid violent revolutions; persons and systems in the government of non-democratic states can only be changed by violence

democracy attempts to economize on the loss of life and property, the interruption of economic activity, which comes with political revolution by bringing the will of the state in accordance with the will of the majority; it is a policy of internal pacifism to complement external pacifism of the Liberal order

history bears out the truth of this function when looking at the relative stability of the English social order since the 17th century versus the instability and violence of the monarchies of Russia, Prussia, Germany and France

democracy seeks to extirpate revolution; in this sense Marxism is anti-democratic; “Liberalism wants success at the smallest price”

direct democracy is not necessary as long as the principle of the will of the state conforming with the will of the majority is attained

democracy should be carried out by professional politicians so long as they represent the will of the majority

there is no difference between the unlimited will of the democratic state and the unlimited will of the autocrat; both rest on the notion of a state based in pure political might

it is a formal mistake with grand consequences when a legislator believes he is free from material considerations because all law emanates from his will; he is not above the natural conditions of social life

“Democracy without liberalism is a hollow form”

the ideal of equality

it is said that socialism necessarily grows out of democracy because democracy requires equality to function

the principle of equality of all before the Law is an essential peacemaking principle because without it people have common interest in subverting the law and ending the peace to get what they want

another reason for equality before the law is to ensure that the ablest producers are ably legally to come to possess the means of production, which has outstanding benefits for all of society

all democracies have foundered on the spirit of pitting the poor against the rich, people who are unequal in material means despite being equal in legal means (supposedly)

the idea of equality arising from a pro rata distribution of the national income is not inherently democratic and should be judged on the basis of its own effects, not as a principle of democracy

Democracy and social-democracy

the idea of democracy and socialism being wedded intellectually comes from the followers of Hegel who believed in the idea of social evolution; because democracy and socialism both were arrived at thorough political and economic “progress”, they were deemed to be compatible

“Democracy is the means toward the realization of socialism, and socialism is the means toward the realization of democracy”

the other idea was that socialism would bring paradise on earth, so it seemed odd if this paradise offered anything less than the “best” political circumstances as well

people ultimately diverged on whether or not it was okay to deviate from the principles of democracy on the way to socialism, ie, the dictatorship of the proletariat

socialism’s critique of “capitalist” sexual relations starts from the premise that a Utopian Golden Age existed in history and sexual relations have degenerated from that point to the current capitalist paradigm

man and woman in the age of violence

“unlimited rule of the male characterizes family relations where the principle of violence dominates” (see: Mafia families)

in this situation, woman is an economic good that man has and makes use of; she is the servant of man because man has the power and and thus the rights

the man can divorce the woman, but she can not do the same to him

love is the anti-thesis of this system because it involves “overvaluing” the object, woman is a queen, rather than a slave

love creates conflicts in this system only from the point of view of the man, who can not stand his property (woman) being possessed by another

marriage under the influence of the idea of contract

capitalism is blamed for bringing money marriages and prostitution and sexual excess; before this love was pure

polygamy tends to accompany the principle of violence because women are property and men wish to acquire as many as they can defend

as women came to possess property and wealth and marriage with them granted access to that property, clear delineation between legitimate and illegitimate connection and succession developed, that is, contract

the idea of contract breaks the rule of the male and makes the wife a partner with equal rights

women were freed from men for the first time when their rights were legally enforceable as contracts

the problems of married life

modern contractual marriage involves conditions by which marriage and love are united; it is morally justified only when love is involved

most of the problems of married life come from the fact that it is a contract for life yet biological passions and even philosophical love may be of limited duration

these problems are internal in nature, not external; they’re due to individual psychology, not the capitalist social order

the feminist movement claimed that marriage forced women to sacrifice their personality and the only solution was abolition of the institution

women are faced with a unique choice: to spend the best years of their lives as mothers, or pursuing their personalities, but rarely both

so long as feminism desires for woman the legal freedom to develop according to her own will, it is a partner of Liberalism

to the extent feminism seeks to reform institutions in an attempt to reform unalterable facts of nature, it is a child of Socialism

free love

socialism aims for free love by abolishing economic necessity and social institutions which previously hampered relations between the sexes

sex is less of a burden for man because the nature of the act for him is less demanding; for women it brings with it the risk of child birth which can be a sincere distraction from her inner development

prostitution

prostitution goes back to ancient society and is a vestige of old morals, not new

women prostitute themselves for different reasons, only one of which is money

capitalism loves peace, yet militarism is one of the primary “patrons” of prostitution

in a society of equal means the economic motives for prostitution may dwindle, but there is no reason to believe other new social sources would not arise in their place

Born and raised in St. Louis, schooled in St. Louis, worked in Dallas, living in Orange County. And Winston-Salem, a step off a beaten path.

The past few days, the Lion and I have been hanging out with his extended family at a beautiful cabin by the lake in Door County, Wisconsin. I don’t know how much you know about Door County (I hadn’t even heard of it before), but apparently it is THE place to go if you’re a Chicagoan.

The towns here are so small that I only have 1G on my phone (I didn’t even know 1G existed)! We spent our time here talking and eating with everyone, enjoying the views, playing video games, and of course, playing Settlers of Catan.

One morning, we got to visit the sheep from a nearby sheep farm (“wool farm”?) run by a couple who also hosts a b&b. The couple, Gretchen and Dick, are wonderful people, and their sheep are sweethearts who aren’t afraid to come up to you and ask for kisses (or give you kisses if you happen to be squatting down for a picture!)! The Lion and I have visited a small variety of backyard and larger farms, and they never cease to amaze and inspire us. I am really looking forward to having chickens and goats in our future backyard, and of course some herbs and flowers and vegetables and fruits too (fertilized naturally by our animals and compost bin). I think the quality and freshness of homegrown, organic foods just can’t be beat (plus the animals are extremely entertaining).

But let’s be real, there are some real downsides to Wisconsin country life too: the least powerful shower head I’ve ever experienced, lack of organic produce, fruits, and free-range protein, a heavy emphasis on breads and sugars, and no internet or cell reception…

While many compromises were made, being in a secluded place was enjoyable still because we could hear the water and the trees, breathe in clean air, see all the stars, and enjoy the company and warmth of a wonderful family (and their little canine and bat friends) around a bonfire.

The grandfather clock in the dining room of this little B&B we’re staying at in Wisconsin bears the timeless wisdom, “Tempus Fugit”. I had to look that one up on my phone, it sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember exactly what it meant.

I have a feeling this trip will involve another expression, “Feast or famine”, and quite literally so. We’re used to eating a certain way at home, and while we’re all about experiencing the local fare, unfortunately the local fare seems to vary wildly in terms of quality and quantity in each place we go.

Sicily I think will be more of a feast place. Wisconsin is seeming more like a famine place. Of course, there’s plenty of soda and beer and such!

The time with family here is welcome. But luckily, time flies, so we won’t have to worry about the famine for too long…